Carol's Books:

EMPOWERMENT OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN G﻿IRLS: RITUAL EXPRESSIONS AT PUBERTYby Carol A. Markstrom, Ph.D.

From Book Flyer: Empowerment of North American Indian Girls is an examination of coming-of-age ceremonies for American Indian girls past and present featuring an in-depth look at Native ideas about human development and puberty. Many North American Indian cultures regard the transition from childhood to adulthood as a pivotal and potentially vulnerable phase of life and have accordingly devised coming-of-age rituals to affirm traditional values and community support for its members. Such rituals are a positive and enabling social force in many modern Native communities whose younger generations are wrestling with substance abuse, mental health problems, suicide, and school dropout. Developmental psychologist Carol A. Markstrom reviews indigenous, historical, and anthropological literatures and conveys the results of her fieldwork to provide descriptive accounts of North American Indian coming-of-age rituals. She gives special attention to the female puberty rituals in four communities: Apache, Navajo, Lakota, and Ojibwa. Of particular interest is the distinctive Apache Sunrise Dance, which is described and analyzed in detail. Also included are American Indian feminist interpretations of menstruation and menstrual taboos, the feminine in cosmology, and the significance of puberty customs and rites for the development of young women.Carol A. Markstrom, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Learning Sciences and Human Development in the College of Education and Human Services at West Virginia University. She is the coauthor of The Adolescent Experience, fourth edition, and Adolescent Life Experiences, third edition, and has authored numerous scholarly works on adolescents and American Indians.

This is Carol's first CHILDREN'S BOOK that began as a song she wrote for children at a school where she performed. The story tells about the moon at midnight enlivening the plants and animals of the desert who form a band and chorus! Children can listen to Carol singing the song while they follow the words and illustrations.

32 pages

ORDER FROM ﻿﻿MERCHANDISE﻿﻿ PAGE.

From the back cover of Dance of the Desert:

Carol Markstrom lives part-time in the Sonoran Desert, where the plants and the animals inspired her to write Dance of the Desert. Carol writes and performs songs that tell stories about American Indians, cowboys, and the great outdoors. You can find Carol and her husband, Rick Sale, with their two chihuahuas, Sister and Shasta, hiking the deserts and mountains of the West!REVIEW of DANCE OF THE DESERT:

“With interesting art provided by Jose Sandoval, you can envision a child’s imagination working over what’s out there in the dark, behind each rock or out beyond each hill. And with a simple “free” download, the package becomes multi-stimulus…The children are the coming audience for what we are hoping to provide and preserve. One can only hope more of our artists contemplate developing materials for that market.” (Rick Huff's Best of the West Reviews)